Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
City profile A City Profile of Liverpool ⇑ Olivier Sykes a, , Jonathan Brown c, Matthew Cocks b, David Shaw a, Chris Couch a a University of Liverpool, 74, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, United Kingdom b Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University, Suzhou, People’s Republic of China c Fairfield, Liverpool, United Kingdom1 article info abstract
Article history: This Profile focuses on patterns of growth, decline and renewal in Liverpool (UK) over the past 200 years. Received 18 July 2012 In this period, the city has seen extremes of both prosperity and decline. It pioneered many of the ele- Received in revised form 22 December 2012 ments of the modern industrial metropolis, only to deurbanise during a ruinous late 20th century decline, Accepted 28 March 2013 halving its population. The centre has now been successfully re-urbanised and the city population is Available online xxxx growing, but spatial inequalities remain intense. As a focus for policy remedies from across the ideolog- ical spectrum, Liverpool offers an instructive archive of approaches of continued relevance and interest. Keywords: Liverpool emerged as a modern global city, based around new systems of international trade and cap- Port-related urban development ital during the 18th and 19th centuries. Growth and wealth were manifested physically in grand archi- Economic restructuring Urban shrinkage tectural landscapes and the planned development of often pioneering modern urban infrastructure Regeneration such as railways, parks, docklands and public housing. Liverpool was among the earliest places to face Cultural heritage acute social challenges characteristic of the industrial city. Its universal importance is reflected in UNE- Urban governance SCO World Heritage Site status for significant portions of its docklands and downtown area. World Heritage Site The city’s population peaked in the 1930s with much of the subsequent century witnessing an accel- Spatial planning erating reversal of the city’s fortunes, as a result of unfavourable economic restructuring, war damage and key planning decisions. Throughout the 20th century Liverpool has been an early test bed for urban policies, sometimes applied from opposing poles of the ideological spectrum. In the switch from planned growth to managing and reversing decline, there have been numerous efforts to ‘regenerate’ the city’s economic, physical and social fabric, many have been successful, whilst others have been seen as deeply damaging, making Liverpool something of an ‘urban laboratory’ worthy of careful consideration and reflection. Informed by the historical trajectory outlined above, this Profile firstly discusses Liverpool’s rise to prominence as a global trade centre in the 18th and 19th centuries. Secondly, challenges faced during the 20th century are considered. Finally, the recent history of redevelopment and regeneration is reviewed and followed by reflections on the present city and its future prospects. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
‘‘a territory is constituted through the sum of the ways in which its presence (Brown, 2009). In 1886 the Illustrated London News de- inhabitants mythologize it’’ scribed Liverpool as ‘‘a wonder of the world...the New York of Eur- Verena Andermatt Conley (2012) ope, a world-city rather than merely British provincial’’ (cited in Belchem (2006a)). By the early 20th century, Liverpool’s merchant fleet was more modern and larger in tonnage than that of London, Introduction its streets held more foreign consulates and embassies (Muir, 1907: 305 cited in Belcham, 2000: 23), and its cargo handling ex- Over two centuries Liverpool has seen extremes of both pros- ceeded New York – and every port on mainland Europe (Port Cities perity and decline. The city emerged as a global port based around Liverpool, n.d.). As late as 1970 Liverpool was still the largest international trade in salt, slaves, raw material and manufactures exporting port in the British Commonwealth, putting it ahead of during the 18th and 19th centuries (Wilks-Heeg, 2003), eventually Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore. Its wealth was manifested beginning to vie with London in terms of global connections and physically in a plethora of grand architectural landscapes and the early development of the characteristic urban infrastructure of ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 151 7943766; fax: +44 151 7943125. the modern city, most notably the world’s first inter-city railway E-mail addresses: [email protected] (O. Sykes), [email protected] (J. (George Stephenson’s Liverpool and Manchester, opened 1830), Brown), [email protected] (D. Shaw), [email protected] (C. Couch). but also public parks, mass housing, planning and sanitation. The 1 www.sharethecity.org
0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 2 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
self-confidence with a year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, generally considered a success (though not without its crit- ics), and the development of the largest newly-built national mu- seum in Britain for a century, immodestly dedicated to the city itself. Beyond the city centre, regeneration initiatives encompass numerous training and business enterprise support programmes, worklessness-alleviation schemes, area-based physical regenera- tion programmes, housing renewal projects, a (hitherto) rapidly expanding airport and business/science park developments. Taken as a whole, such activity is seen by commentators to have had a positive effect upon the city, its economy, internal psychology and external image (Boland, 2008). The city’s economic growth rate over the 15 years preceeding the 2007/2008 global economic crisis was higher than that of other UK ‘peripheral’ cities (LCC, 2011). Growth in average earnings out-performed the Great Brit- ain average between 2002 and 2009, as did the rate of employ- Graph 1. Liverpool population growth and decline in the 18th and 20th centuries. ment growth between 1998 and 2009 (LCC, 2011). The trend Source: Peter Brown, University of Liverpool, Department of Civic Design. towards vertiginous population decline of the latter decades of the 20th century stabilised, with the latest (2011) census showing a 5.5% population increase since 2001, to 466,400 (ONS, 2012)– legacy of this era is reflected in UNESCO World Heritage Site status, psychologically powerful as the first rise since the 1930s, and and the city’s contemporary claim to have the most architecturally the largest (proportionally) since the 19th century. In 2010 the ‘listed’ (protected) buildings in the UK outside London. Merseyside metropolitan county population stood at 1,353,400, Liverpool’s core population growth during the 19th century and that of the slightly wider ‘Liverpool City Region’ 1,472,700 mirrored its strategic and economic prominence, rising from (LCC, 2011). 78,000 in 1801 to 870,000 in the mid-1930s (Graph 1), with over Yet despite such encouraging trends, challenges remain sub- a million people living in its immediate urban area by 1900. From stantial. Whilst economic growth rates have been positive, the ci- this peak, much of the 20th century by contrast witnessed an ty’s Gross Value Added per capita in 2009 remained below both accelerating reversal of fortunes, with the core population sinking the Core Cities2 and national average (£19,647 in Liverpool, com- to 430,000 by 2001. pared with £21,103 for the UK and £21,889 for the Core Cities) As a result of external economic circumstances (changes in the (LCC, 2011). Moreover, in a 2012 study comparing the UK’s 64 pri- terms of trade to favour Britain’s south and east coast ports, air mary urban areas, ‘think tank’ Centre for Cities ranked Liverpool transport and maritime containerisation), exacerbated by key amongst the lowest for a number of key economic, demographic planning decisions (the planned ‘overspill’ clearance of some and social indicators (Centre for Cities, 2012). Liverpool is the most 160,000 people, and catastrophic failures of costly comprehensive deprived borough in England. Spatially concentrated deprivation is area redevelopment projects), by the 1980s the core population fell among the most acute in the UK in Liverpool’s central, northern below 500,000 and unemployment rates reached almost 40% in and peripheral residential districts, with some 70% of the city’s 33 certain neighbourhoods (Census, 1981). Liverpool was seen by electoral wards within the 10% most deprived in England and Wales. some as a ‘beaten city’ – the ‘shock city’ of the post-industrial ‘Healthy life expectancy’ differentials between the city region’s age (Belchem, 2006b). wealthiest and poorest wards vary by up to 30 years. Liverpool and Liverpool’s vivid socio-economic and environmental degrada- its wider conurbation therefore remain a place of contrast and social tion, alongside its rich cultural capital and architectural legacies and spatial disparities. (often seen as being at risk), has given momentum to intensive In keeping with other City Profiles (see for example Ellis & Kim, processes of ‘regeneration’, latterly drawing upon large sums of na- 2001) the goal here is not to comprehensively rehearse the histor- tional and European Union monies. Ahead of many other urban ical evolution of Liverpool in fine empirical detail, but rather to localities, processes of regeneration have led to the formation of provide a synoptic treatment of key trends, themes and narratives, new semi-permanent governance frameworks, involving multi-le- reflecting the city’s ongoing ‘story’. An overview of the city’s evolu- vel ‘collaborative milieus’ of local, regional and national institu- tion is presented as context for a discussion of the recent past and tions. ‘Regeneration’ has become the city’s dominant, if seldom future prospects. quantified or questioned, objective. The approach adopted is influenced by work which has drawn The past 30 years have seen a transformation of the city centre: attention to the role of stories and storytelling in the context of the leisure-based revitalisation of large sections of the vast derelict planning, community development and urban policy (see Marris, dock system, a boom in city centre living and associated apartment 1997; McMordie, Stein, & Harper, 2007; Sandercock, 2003a, development, new public spaces and environmental improve- 2003b; Throgmorton, 1996; Throgmorton & Eckstein, 2003). Sand- ments, a major expansion of hotel ‘bed spaces’, £1.2bn of city cen- ercock (2003a, 2003b), for example, identifies core plots that are tre retail development, a new waterfront arena and conference characteristic of human stories including, ‘rags to riches’, ‘fall from centre, and large areas of new and improved office space across a grace’, growth to maturity’ and ‘Golden Age lost’, and argues that sto- modernised business quarter. ries in, and about, places often embody such familiar plots. Urban In parallel to improvements in central business district infra- development and transformation often involves the telling of ‘core’ structure, recent decades have seen an increasing emphasis on or ‘foundational’ stories about people and places, the articulation of ‘cultural capital’ as a regeneration driver, adding a new Tate Gal- lery, International Slavery Museum, privately financed Beatles museum and expanded programmes of events such as the visual 2 The Core Cities are England’s economically most important cities outside of arts ‘Biennial’ to Liverpool’s noted legacy of Victorian philan- London. They are: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, thropic institutions. Liverpool marked a revival of its cultural Nottingham and Sheffield. See: http://www.corecities.com/.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 3
Map 1. The North West of England and Liverpool in their wider context. Source adapted from: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) (2002), Your Region Your Choice, The Stationary Office, London.
‘future stories’, and, the use of stories as catalysts for change (Sand- ‘‘Liverpool’s Story is the World’s Glory’’ – from humble ercock, 2003a, 2003b). beginnings to ‘golden age’ (Belchem, 2006a) Liverpool is a place whose ‘foundational story’ – past, present and future – has been told and re-told numerous times and repre- Liverpool is the core city of the ‘Merseyside’ conurbation in the sented through multiple and highly-contrasting narrations (Bel- North West of England region, the latter encompassing the historic chem, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c; Muir, 1907). The account here deals counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumberland/Cumbria. The largely with ‘the city’ and cannot in the space available provide a North West borders Wales, Scotland, the Irish Sea and the English comprehensive cultural or social history (for more detail see works regions of the West Midlands, North East, and Yorkshire and the by: Aughton, 2012; Belchem, 2006a, 2006b; Boland, 2008; Corne- Humber (Maps 1 and 2). In 2007 the city celebrated the eighth cen- lius, 2001; Howell Williams, 1971; Lane, 1997; Lees, 2011; McIn- tenary of King John’s grant of its founding charter, and thus has tyre-Brown & Woodland, 2001; Munck, 2003). The focus here is credentials as a mediaeval town. This is reflected in a central on patterns of growth, decline and renewal in Liverpool over the grid-iron of ‘seven streets’ which preserve the memory of a medi- past 200 years. aeval settlement – Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, High The following section discusses the city’s rise to prominence as Street, Old Hall Street, Tithebarn Street and Water Street. Despite a global trade centre in the 18th and 19th centuries. Liverpool’s this ancient pedigree, the most rapid and dramatic economic, subsequent ‘fall from grace’ during the 20th century, and how this demographic and physical changes, for which the city is most impacted upon its economic, physical and cultural characteristics, known, occurred between the 18th and 20th centuries (Graph 1), is addressed. The more recent history of ‘renaissance’ is then con- from its role as an eminent seaport (LCC, 2006: 15–14)(Fig. 1). Liv- sidered, followed by conclusions reflecting upon the present city erpool’s urban structure and physical fabric derive from a combi- and its future prospects. nation of its geographical position on the River Mersey, and a
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 4 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Map 2. Liverpool in context – Liverpool, Merseyside and the Liverpool City Region. Source: Authors and Sandra Mather, Liverpool University Cartography Department. legacy of successive stages of economic growth and decline – encompassing the rapidly industrialising English north and mid- sometimes the result of large scale planned interventions. The eco- lands with its emergent networks of canals and then railways, nomic, social, cultural, and physical contours of contemporary Liv- the population of the port and city grew twenty-fold from 20,000 erpool are largely defined by the development of the city as an in 1750 to 376,000 in 1851, and 685,000 in 1901, attracting immi- ‘outrider’ of mercantile, industrial, post-industrial and ‘urban grants from across the British isles and beyond. Between 1801 and renaissance’ eras of Western global capitalism. 1901 the population of the wider urban area of Merseyside in- At the end of the 16th century the main port in the region since creased from 100,000 to 1,023,000 (Belchem, 2006a: 4). During this Roman times, Chester, on the nearby Dee estuary, began to suffer period the city largely built its wealth on the burgeoning Lanca- from the effects of silting. At first larger ships transferred further shire cotton industry (Wilks-Heeg, 2003, p. 40), initially sustained downstream, but eventually Chester’s trade moved to Liverpool, by plantation slave labour abroad and exploitative industrial con- hitherto a small fishing and farming community with a fortified ditions at home. By 1850 Liverpool handled some 85% of Britain’s embarkation point for troops to Ireland on the north bank of the total annual import of 1.75 million cotton bales (Victorian Society, deeper waters of the Mersey estuary. Although the 9 m tidal reach 1967, p. 4, cited in Wilks-Heeg (2003)). The variety of goods han- meant that expensive docks rather than riverside wharfs were soon dled by the port became ever more diverse, with increasing vol- needed to accommodate larger ships, civil engineer Thomas Steer’s umes of cotton, sugar, grain, tobacco, coal and manufactured conversion of a muddy tidal creek (the original ‘Liver Pool’) to the goods. modern world’s first enclosed stone dock in 1715 began the port’s The expanding wealth and population of the city were reflected exponential growth into a latter-day trading city-state, on a scale in its evolving urban development. Liverpool’s estuarine local to eclipse any in Europe. topography shaped her wider urban growth and form (Map 2). Facing the Irish Sea, with easy access to Dublin, Glasgow and As land around the ‘old dock’ was filled with warehousing, rope- New World colonies across the Atlantic Ocean, and a hinterland makers and ships suppliers, the wealthier gravitated uphill to the
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 5
on the west bank of the Mersey, where wealthy merchants estab- lished first residences and then the planned town of Birkenhead, hailed as ‘the city of the future’ for its grid-iron layout, pioneering park and modern ship yards. To Liverpool’s north and south, further large dockland settle- ments were developed at Bootle and Garston. As the conurbation grew out along radial routes, working classes tended to be housed along the river within easy reach of the docks, whilst the middle classes continued to push outwards and uphill, building townhous- es and villas on a series of sandstone ridges overlooking the river that step up parallel with the shoreline, a mile inland. Thus, middle class housing became to some degree topographically separated from working class neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the effect of the estuary passing through the middle of the conurbation was to separate the central city from many of its most prosperous sub- urbs ‘over the water’. That Liverpool’s expansive ‘golden age’ had its dark side too is not in doubt. The 18th century had seen Liverpool increase partic- ipation in the slave trade to the extent that the city earned the inglorious distinction of being ‘‘Britain’s leading slave port’’, one apex of the notorious ‘triangular trade’ between Europe, Africa and the Americas (Longmore, 2006, p. 132). Between 1699 and abolition in 1807, British and British colonial ports mounted 12,103 slaving voyages: 3351 from London, 2105 from Bristol and 5199 from Liverpool, trading 3.4 m people – part of the largest forced migration in human history (Port Cities, n.d.). Slavery was only finally abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s, and in the American plantations later still. Profits derived from the prac- tice therefore continued to enrich British merchants and manufac- turers for some time following 1807 (Thomas, 1997). As the port grew in the 19th century, attracting migrants from other parts of the British Isles, her colonies and the Continent, it mixed rich linguistic and cultural diversity with festering religious sectarianism, racial segregation and systemic discrimination (Bel- chem, 2006a; Lees, 2011). Between 1830 and 1930 some 9 million people emigrated through Liverpool. Some who arrived were al- ready successful men of means, but the ‘huddled masses’ who stayed on had to start at the bottom and work up, literally in Liv- erpool’s case, where poor families were crammed into fetid dock- land cellars, ravaged by outbreaks of diseases like cholera and typhus. The city was fundamentally changed during the Irish potato famines of the mid 1840s, being the first port of call for refugees fleeing crop failure and starvation conditions. The scale of their emigration was epic – 2 million Irish people came to and through Liverpool in a decade, a quarter of the island’s population. Within just 3 months in 1847, 90,000 people arrived from Ireland (Irish Historian, n.d.), and a further 300,000 in the 12 months after new crop failures in July 1847. Many used Liverpool as a mere transit point for gruelling onward sailings to North America (35 days until steamships reduced the passage in the 1860s to 7–10 days) and Australia (10–17 weeks by sail), but a large proportion of this ‘dias- pora’ remained in the city, shaping its character (including through the introduction of sectarianism to the city – Belchem, 2006a), and Fig. 1. The Mersey River and Waterfront (Brown, 2012: www.sharethecity.org/ eventually building resilient communities. As it grew, the city also gallery/#all). acquired the moniker of ‘The Capital of North Wales’. By around 1860 there were 40,000 Welsh inhabitants of Liverpool (many of long ridge overlooking the river, above and away from the tradi- whom had no English) and 80,000 by 1900. The Welsh made a ma- tional haunts of seamen and dockers. A classically ordered grid of jor contribution to the building trade and growth of the city as streets and squares, punctuated by fine churches and refined pub- ‘‘Thousands of small homes, usually cheap and well-constructed, lic buildings, was laid out for regulated private development in the in street after street, were built by Welshmen to relieve an appall- decades either side of 1800 by corporation surveyors John Foster ing housing plight’’ (Howell Williams, 1971: 20). The Merseyside Senior and his son, giving Liverpool’s core its elegant Georgian Welsh also played a role in the revival of Welsh culture and lan- character. guage with a total of five National Eisteddfodau being held in Liv- Across the mile-wide river, the advent of steam ferries around erpool and Birkenhead during the 19th century. Chinese, African, 1815 connected Liverpool more directly to the Wirral peninsula, Scottish, Italian, Jewish and many other ethnic groups also shaped
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 6 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Map 3. Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site. Source: Liverpool City Council.
the character of the city. The first Mosque in England was opened St. George’s Hall and the Albert Dock, Liverpool’s greatest Victorian by the Liverpool solicitor and convert to Islam, William Abdullah buildings, date from this period. Quilliam, in 1889 (BBC News, 2009). Outrage at insanitary mid 19th century social conditions led to In the early 19th century Liverpool already had one of the high- the Liverpool Corporation’s3 appointment in 1847 of the first Med- est mortality rates in Britain, and after the 1840s was labelled the ical Officer of Health, William Henry Duncan (1805–1863), popularly ‘Black Spot on the Mersey’ (Pooley, 2006, p. 173), with life expec- known as Doctor Duncan, and the first Borough Engineer, James tancy at birth just 19 years. High rates of poverty and an economic Newland (1813–1871). Both became heroes of the city for their over- culture of casualised dock labour contributed to problems with sight of improved sanitation – and by extension, town planning. alcohol, with arrests for drunkenness (both men and women) com- Theirs was the modern world’s first integrated sewerage system, prising by far the largest category of crime in the city during the necessitating wide, well-paved streets, carefully spaced ‘by-law’ second half of the 19th century (Pooley, 2006, p. 241). Neverthe- housing, orderly cemeteries and publicly provided supplies of clean less, the people of Liverpool and their leaders were driven by a powerful sense of ‘improvement’ – of themselves, their fellows, 3 Liverpool Corporation was the local governing body for Liverpool established their public environment and Liverpool’s place in the world. prior to the 19th century. Following the 1972 Local Government Act the organisation Enlightened progress was sometimes faltering, but often radical. was abolished and reconstituted as Liverpool City Council.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 7
Fig. 2. The Business District – Maritime Mercantile City World Heritage Site. water. Their partnership was effective – life expectancy during Dun- lowed within 4 years by Stanley and Sefton Parks. All are now reg- can and Newland’s tenure doubled. istered historic landscapes (Layton Jones & Lee, 2008). Also in the 1840s, across the Mersey in Birkenhead, Joseph Pax- The latter half of the 19th century also witnessed a further ton (1803–1865), the landscape architect at Chatsworth House, development of the economy with the growth of commercial activ- developer of the successful private ‘Princes Park’ estate in Toxteth ities; shipping lines; commodity exchanges; banking and insur- and later the designer of London’s Crystal Palace, laid out the ance. Many of these firms constructed elegant office buildings world’s first municipal public park – famously the inspiration for around the Pier Head and Castle Street – the historic core of the Olmsted’s Central Park masterpiece in New York City. Paxton and city (McMullin & Brown, 2012; Sharples & Stonard, 2008). Much his apprentice Edward Kemp inspired a ring of great parks and of this commercial ensemble and the city’s waterfront and cultural open spaces encircling the city, with Newsham Park (1868) fol- heart were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 (Map 3,
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 8 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Fig. 3. Port Sunlight (Sykes, 2012).
Figs. 2 and 4). The Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City World Her- plan for a circular boulevard and ring of parks round the congested itage Site (WHS) was inscribed on the list as an ‘‘exceptional testi- town, foreshadowing the greenbelts and ring-roads of Sir Patrick mony to mercantile culture’’ and the ‘‘supreme example of a Abercrombie’s (1879–1957) historic London plan a century later. commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global influence’’ The civil engineer John Alexander Brodie (1858–1934) laid out (Liverpool City Council, 2009: 6). orbital and arterial ‘parkway’ dual carriageways to extend the city’s During this period, mayors, architects and engineers from round suburbs and promoted the installation of electric trams. In the the world looked to Liverpool and its urban area for inspiration. 1900s, Brodie was also a pioneer in the use of pre-fabricated hous- Many of the characteristic infrastructural and engineering ele- ing technology to construct social housing tenements, and oversaw ments that define the modern city were pioneered, or found early building of the Queensway Mersey tunnel, opened in 1934, which expression, in Liverpool – inter-city railways, underground, over- at 2 miles retained the record as longest underwater road tunnel in head and underwater metro systems, electric tram networks, mod- the world for some 25 years (Howell Williams, 1971). ern sewers, technical schools and fresh water supplies. Irish-born In architecture, cast iron was being used from the 18th century, Alderman Richard Sheil (1791–1851) presided over the ambitious and Thomas Rickman was building entire churches from iron
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 9 frames by 1813. The glass curtain-walling of contemporary sky- social and environmental conditions, and a weakened civic gover- scraper cities could be found in Liverpool’s 1864 Oriel Chambers, nance structure dependent on outside resources. ahead of America. Classical tastes disguised technological innova- The external conditions faced by Liverpool in the aftermath of tion – for example, the mid 19th-century St George’s Hall is air- WWII took decades to play through. Several major processes can conditioned, and the entire 7.5 mile dock system was power-as- be identified including a decline in the cotton industry in the city’s sisted by complex hydraulics. In the 20th century, the Bund water- Lancashire hinterland from the 1930s onwards, which was acceler- front in Shanghai emerged as a mirror image of the Pier Head in ated by Indian independence in 1947, as the sub-continent re- Liverpool, suggesting the Mersey skyline was perceived as being gained control of its own markets. Air travel and a shift in worthy of emulation into the 1920s. Britain’s trading focus (away from exports and the Commonwealth, Equally influential on a domestic scale, the Garden City move- towards imports, London-based financial services and the rest of ment that seeded the ubiquitous leafy suburb has its spiritual Europe) steadily accrued threats to her premier Atlantic port. home in Port Sunlight, soap manufacturing entrepreneur William These ‘macro’ level forces were for some time mitigated or Hesketh Lever’s (1851–1925) picturesque model village. Workers masked. The depression years of the ‘hungry thirties’ had been alle- from the adjacent factory, still operated by Unilever today, were viated by immense public works. Between the Second World War housed in dwellings designed by leading architects of the time and the early 1970s, Liverpool’s response to industrial restructur- such as Edwin Lutyens and could enjoy a range of facilities and ing had benefited from national redistributive economic policies benefits, notably an art gallery containing works by pre-Raphaelite such as Development Area (1949) and Development District masters, interspersed with regular communal train trips to the sea- (1960) status, which incentivised growth industries like car manu- side (Darley, 1978)(Fig. 3). Viscount Leverhulme (as Lever became) facture to locate in less prosperous areas of the country (McCrone, was to sustain his interest in matters of town planning and archi- 1969). The Royal Navy had its flagship HMS Ark Royal constructed tecture, later gifting a sum to the University of Liverpool to allow on the Mersey at Cammell Laird in 1937, as was her replacement in the establishment of a Department of Civic Design, the world’s first 1950. In concert with the general prosperity of the post-war period school dedicated to town planning, which celebrated its centenary (Harvey, 1989), in the mid-1960s unemployment fell to about 5% in 2009 (Batey & Jackson, 2009; Wright, 1982). in the city (Meegan, 1989). The ship yard remained busy. Britain Between 1925 and 1948 City Architect Sir Lancelot Keay (1883– was the world’s biggest exporter of cars until 1972 – as the UK’s 1974) worked with Brodie and his successors on an extraordinary largest export port, Liverpool remained strategically important. programme of urban expansion and housing improvements, to This was a period of considerable civic and cultural activity and alleviate overcrowding in the teeming central core. During Keay’s energy. The Beatles and beat poets were just the most prominent tenure 35,000 new houses and flats were built, and proto ‘new representatives of the city’s cast of ‘war babies’ and ‘baby boomers’ town’ garden city estates like Speke, Dovecot and Norris Green who energised and revolutionised the nascent popular culture of were developed, linked by extensions to the tram network. Around the 1960s. The phenomenon of ‘Merseybeat’ in music, poetry and the centre, Keay developed a series of tenement projects – ‘‘brick other diverse art forms was influential and recognised far beyond blocks of flats, taking after the more unambiguously municipal so- the city and region’s boundaries (Du Noyer, 2002). Although its im- cialist precedents of the cities with which Liverpool is rightly com- pact has been somewhat lessened by repetition and its originator’s pared – Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin’’ (Hatherley, 2010: 335). description of other cities in the same terms, Allen Ginsberg’s statement that Liverpool in the 1960s was ‘‘at the present moment, the centre of consciousness of the human universe’’ (Hickling, The changing face of Liverpool in the 20th century – from 2007) captures this confident spirit. ‘golden age’ to ‘fall from grace’? But the period of economic respite in the 1960s was followed by increasingly severe difficulties during subsequent decades. Brit- The early 20th century saw the peak of the city’s population and ain’s retreat from Empire and the growing importance of European prosperity. In the years preceding World War I, Liverpool, espe- trade, meant that Liverpool found itself ‘‘marooned on the wrong cially if considered in combination with its industrial neighbour side of the country’’ (Lane, 1987, p. 45), and increasingly uncom- Manchester, vied with London, hosting more embassies and con- petitive (Belchem, 2006b; Wilks-Heeg 2003). Technological change sulates of foreign governments, and controlling comparable pro- also had a major impact. Containerisation, combined with the portions of world trade, finance and shipping. The confidence trend towards larger vessels, increased the speed of cargo han- which flowed from this position encouraged the city corporation dling, and rendered obsolete the wharves and warehouses of older to pursue zealous works programmes for health, housing and upstream docks. The prestigious international passenger trade transport. switched from ocean liners to jet airliners, and Manchester’s air- Yet signs of change in the fortunes of the city became evident port was favoured over Liverpool as the northern English hub. from the beginning of the 20th century, as ports in the south of The southern half of Liverpool’s 7.5 mile dock system closed in England and other parts of Europe increased their share of cargo 1971, and the last Canadian Pacific liner sailed a year later. De- and passenger trade. It is of more than symbolic significance that mand for dock labour declined rapidly, unemployment rose and the Titanic, registered in Liverpool and financed through Cunard’s vast areas of dockland became redundant (Couch, 2003). Britain’s rival White Star line, embarked on its maiden voyage from South- de-industrialisation accelerated over the precipice into the 1980s, ampton. For Howell Williams (1971: 12) ‘‘during the three decades eliminating much of the secure employment and associated social which followed the end of the 19th century, both the worst of Liv- stability that existed in the sixties. Liverpool’s Lancashire hinter- erpool’s social conditions and peak of its commercial power’’ were land became a rust-belt of vacant cotton mills, declining coal fields over. Liverpool’s population peaked in the 1930s with 855,688 peo- and stagnant canals. ple recorded in the 1931 census (Belchem, 2006a). From that time To some extent, the city had anticipated and attempted to pre- until the turn of the 21st century the population virtually halved to pare for these changes. As early as the 1930s Liverpool constructed 445,200 (ONS, 2012). There were two principal underlying causes: a three runway airport at Speke, with the most impressive terminal increasingly unfavourable external economic conditions following complex in the country, acknowledged as the equal of Berlin’s WWII, compounded by major self-inflicted public policy mistakes. Templehof and Le Bourget in Paris (Smith, Bowdler, & Toulier, These combined in the second half of the 20th century to create a 2000). This was an explicit effort to develop an alternative airport ‘perfect storm’ of declining employment opportunities, worsening to hedge against decline in the seaport. A further runway able to
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 10 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx handle the largest jet airliners (and Cold War transport planes) was adoption of comprehensive area clearance and redevelopment pol- opened in 1966. In the docklands, the Mersey Docks and Harbour icies, based in what proved to be hugely over-optimistic projec- Board attempted to retain trade by opening the UK’s largest con- tions of continued population growth. tainer dock at Seaforth in 1972, keeping the port alive. The 1970s The aftermath of WW2 bombing, combined with a ‘booming’ also saw investment in the modernisation of the shipyards on birth rate, scarcity of construction materials and skilled labour, the Wirral side of the Mersey. Post war plans showed a grid of ur- and the residue of a long-standing overcrowding and slum prob- ban motorways connecting to a second Mersey Road tunnel, the lem, meant housing was a key issue on the local political agenda latter completed in 1971. after 1945 (Murden, 2006). Keay had shown slum clearance and Liverpool’s boldly modernist 1965 City Centre Plan was de- innovative architecture could improve conditions. All political par- signed to ‘‘re-shape and redevelop what was perceived to be an ob- ties were committed to addressing the situation aggressively, and a solete and inefficient city centre’’ (Couch, 2003, p. 51) with an large multi-decade programme of housing demolition and con- underground electric rail loop, office towers and a series of en- struction resumed. The difference was that Keay’s inner city inter- closed shopping precincts connected by networks of overhead ventions were essentially surgical, while the post war clearance walkways. The University of Liverpool had appointed star archi- was truly comprehensive. tects including Denys Lasdun, Basil Spence and Lord Holford to The city’s 1966 Housing Plan proposed demolition of 36% of all plan and develop a modern central campus and teaching hospital. its homes, and 70% of those in the mainly Victorian ‘inner areas’ While Keay’s replacement as City Architect, Ronald Bradbury, em- (Couch, Fowles, & Karecha, 2009). Furthermore, the ‘decanting’ of braced high-rise housing, developing 70 tower blocks. A city regio- displaced inner city ‘slum’ residents was not to be within the local nal Merseyside County Council was set up in 1973 to handle district, but to new ‘overspill’ estates and expanded towns, to be strategic planning across the metropolitan area. developed on or well beyond the periphery of the city (Meegan, Yet less than 10 years after the swinging sixties, the image of 1989). This was strategically combined with the development of the city was no longer that of a thriving cosmopolitan port but of industrial sites in close proximity to the new settlements. In the in- an ‘imperial mausoleum’ (Lane, 1978), a place humbled by wide- ner areas, ‘‘slums’’ were to be replaced by a series of radical high- spread dereliction and acute poverty. The unemployment rate for rise tower block developments, subsidised by national government Liverpool rose from 10.6% in 1971 to 21.6% in 1991 (Census, (Andrews, 2012; Murden, 2006). By the mid-1970s some 160,000 1991). Redundancy rates peaked in 1971 at 12,750 per year, and people had been moved out of the city as part of this plan, and by 1977 a further 66,000 people had lost their jobs (Murden, many others ‘decanted’ (displaced) within it. 2006). Citing significant under-reporting, Liverpool City Council The high rise and new town overspill residential developments estimated that the true number of unemployed persons by the late during this period were combined with the Shankland Plan for city 1970s was over 150,000 (20–30% of the working aged population), centre renewal, itself coupled with a planned grid of major urban treble the official figures (Merseyside Socialist Research Group, motorways serving a second road tunnel and the container port. 1980). The decline of Liverpool’s economy and that of the wider As with Robert Moses Cross Bronx Highway in New York, the Merseyside sub-region contributed to rapid out-migration (partic- method and outcomes of such grand scale demolition soon proved ularly of the young and skilled), underutilisation of key resources catastrophic. Slum-clearances temporarily raised housing stan- such as labour, higher than average unemployment and a low eco- dards but dissipated established family, community and small nomic activity rate. Such trends contributed to a perceived long- business networks, and many of inner Liverpool’s highly connected term lack of competitiveness as measured by conventional eco- streetscapes and buildings were demolished. Folk histories con- nomic indicators, and serious issues in relation to labour relations, tinue to lament the loss of entire districts such as Scotland Road, social exclusion and polarisation in both the core city and wider home of the city’s Irish community (Rogers, 2010). Conservation- conurbation (Batey, 1998). Murden (2006: 428) provides a stark ists see removal of landmarks, of which Foster’s Custom House, summary of the economic situation of the city at this time: St. John’s Market and ornate Sailors Home were merely the most prominent, as the epitome of the era’s egregious municipal vandal- Between 1966 and 1977 no less than 350 factories in Liverpool ism (Stamp, 2007), closed or moved elsewhere, 40,000 jobs were lost and between Liverpool may perhaps have adapted to either macro level eco- 1971 and 1985 employment in the city fell by 33 per cent...Betw- nomic changes outlined above, or absorbed localised disruption een 1979 and 1981 the rate of job losses accelerated to a frighten- through a period of comprehensive clearance and redevelopment, ing level, employment in the city falling by a further 18 per cent. By had they not arrived simultaneously. The traumatic combination early 1981, 20 per cent of the city’s labour force were unemployed of both proved disastrous. The economy could not adapt and the and it was reported that there were just 49 jobs on offer for the clearance areas often did not redevelop successfully. Indeed, the 13,505 youngsters registered unemployed. new high rise towers and peripheral estates proved socially devas- tating, degenerating into ‘Piggeries’ – places unfit for human hab- It is worth focusing on how Liverpool’s extraordinary switch- itation within few years of completion, and well before their back occurred. How did a municipality famed for building ambi- building loans were repaid (Lord Denning, Irwin vs. Liverpool, tious modern infrastructure copied from Shanghai to New York, 1978). collapse within a generation or so into a by-word for urban failure, Just at the point when Western economies were shifting to- derided in the national media as a ‘self pity city’? wards higher technology and service based activities, Liverpool The answers are rooted in a complex interaction of the macro was shipping tens of thousands of its active workforce to new level technological and trading changes cited above, with a series towns, beyond the reach of its local tax base. And the rapid failure of locally driven planning policy decisions, rooted in the city’s of its system-built high rise blocks, and the long term blight im- admirable traditions of confidence and improvement, but jettison- posed by abortive city centre walkway and urban motorway plans, ing their essentially human focus for grandiose abstractions of left it with a degraded environment and more residual population, modernity, change and transformation as ends in themselves. a deterrent to residents and investors, with city finances becoming Totemic post-war harbingers were the lamentable demolition ever more dependent on central government grants. of John Foster’s domed Customs House, removal in 1954 of the ci- Yet, though Liverpool may in places have looked and felt like ty’s tram network and closure of the Overhead Railway in 1956. By the beaten city, its remaining citizenry were not ready to abandon far the most significant and long lasting mistake was the energetic ship without a fight. The seventies into the eighties were the stage
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 11 for a whole series of set piece confrontations between the Liver- long-established Black community they were magnified at this pool citizenry and their authorities. At street level, many of these time by official ostracisation and systematically racist policing involved housing issues, notably the Kirby Rent Strike and a (Frost & Phillips, 2011). Provoked too far, tensions exploded in July growing resistance to clearance proposals around the proposed in- 1981 through a series of widely publicised riots in the inner city ner motorway (Botham and Herson, 1980). Some communities, Toxteth area, known locally as the ‘uprising’ (Cornelius, 2001; Frost such as the Eldonians in north Liverpool (Leeming, 2000; McBane, & Phillips, 2011; Vulliamy, 2011). Strained relations between the 2008) and Granby residents in the south, resisted redevelopment police and local black youths provided the initial catalyst for their after seeing its baleful outcomes, and staked their claim to stay outbreak, but subsequently rioters also came from a variety of the in historic core neighbourhoods. Some wrested ownership or city’s communities and districts to join in (Vulliamy, 2011). The promises of funds from central government to form new housing violence was a stark communication to national government of associations and co-operatives, which began as a kaleidoscope of how severe things had become, and during a subsequent visit to small community-led bodies, but have since merged and grown the affected area by Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, local lead- into dominant social housing providers. ers led by the city’s Anglican and Roman Catholic clerics, made a Conservationist sentiment gained momentum as Liverpool’s request that the Government appoint a specific ‘Minister for architectural jewels seemed to be squandered casually, with Pro- Merseyside’ (Sheppard, 2002; Sheppard & Worlock, 1988). fessor Quentin Hughes’s ‘Seaport’ (1969) having as profound an The national Minister for the Environment at the time, Michael influence for Liverpool as the campaigns for Venice. Groups such Heseltine, was given this role shortly afterwards with support from as the Merseyside Civic Society, SAVE Britain’s Heritage (Powell, a newly established Merseyside Task Force (MTF) (Heseltine, 1984) and Royal Fine Arts Commission criticised some of the 2000). The MTF had a remit to ‘‘devise innovative strategies and new developments in the city, as did some of the authority’s own projects to turn around Liverpool’s long-term problems and most senior planning officers. Such public feeling subsequently encourage private-sector investment’’ (Murden, 2006; 445). A helped to save the now Grade 1 listed Albert Dock, later to become few months before the riots, the government had also created a symbol of Liverpool’s renaissance (Fig. 4). the Merseyside Development Corporation (MDC) – one of the first Industrial relations became notoriously militant as demand for two Urban Development Corporation’s (UDC) in the country (Mee- labour in the docks declined and national politics were played out gan, 1999). The MDC was primarily concerned with physical regen- in ‘branch plant’ car factories and city council union meetings. The eration. It was provided with a large zone of redundant and derelict local authority’s benevolent attempts to soak up surplus labour docklands to redevelop and funds and complete planning powers placed heavy demands on a dwindling number of ‘rate payers’, for the area (thus bypassing local government control). It was a leading to political tensions between socialists and Liberals in the ‘pump-priming organization that would encourage private-sector Town Hall. With the 1970s oil shocks culminating in Britain’s investment and jobs while bringing land and buildings back into IMF bail-out, the party was truly over. Liverpool’s status as north- effective use’ (Murden, 2006; 439). The MTF and MDC were a ma- ern England’s only true metropolis faced competition from other jor element of Liverpool’s regeneration and development gover- regional centres and development of ‘out-of-town’ shopping and nance during this period and initiated, or were involved with, leisure facilities reducing the relative importance of Liverpool City much of the physical regeneration of the city during the 1980s, Centre in the retail and cultural life of its hinterland. including the regeneration of the central docks (Fig. 4), the Interna- The frustrations felt by the city’s residents as a result of these tional Garden Festival of 1984, and the creation of industrial space destructive economic trends were widespread. In Liverpool’s (Meegan, 1999; Murden, 2006).
Fig. 4. The restored Albert Dock.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 12 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Fig. 5. Liverpool one shopping centre.
A city facing distressing economic circumstances might hope disqualified from office as a result of having voted for the illegal for a strong alignment of local and national political and financial budget (Crick, 1986). capacity to act in addressing the resulting challenges. Relationships The late 1980s and the 1990s was a period of tentative recovery between local government in Liverpool and national government, for the Council, which under new leadership sought to repair dam- however, became very strained during the early 1980s. As a result aged external relationships. Meegan suggests that a situation of of the severe problems the city was facing, and an increasing sense relative political inertia in the Council chamber during this time that the blame for many of these could be laid at the door of na- provided the context for a new mode of governance and ‘‘an era tional government and the callous, impersonal forces of global cap- of ‘partnership’’ (2003, p. 62). The MDC increased its spatial remit italism personified by the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret beyond the docklands, and began to develop its communication Thatcher (Brookfield, 2002; Crick, 1986), a hard left ‘Militant’ ten- with other bodies. The first half of the 1990s also saw the Council dency of the local Labour party gained control of the council in win substantial direct regeneration funds from the national gov- 1983, and set about its own urban regeneration strategy based lar- ernment, including the City Challenge programme, overseen by gely around building new municipal housing and clearing the Liverpool’s political champion Michael Heseltine. City Challenge ‘slum’ tenements (Lees, 2011). In order to fund its ambitious pro- encouraged the Local Authority to work in partnership with the gramme the City Council set an illegal budget which almost bank- private, community and voluntary sectors, and undertook the rupted the city (Parkinson, 1985) and, when combined with widely physical revitalisation of a large area to the east of the city centre differing ideological views, this brought the ‘Militants’ into direct (Couch, 2003). and vociferous conflict, not only with Margaret Thatcher’s national Perhaps most significantly, Merseyside and Liverpool City government, but with their own Labour party’s national leadership. Council also acquired substantial European Union support, gaining In 1985 forty-seven Liverpool councillors were ‘surcharged’ and Objective One structural fund status between 1994 and 2006 (Bo-
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 13 land, 2000; Evans, 2002). This resulted in over £1.3 billion of public Capital and culture – signs of a renaissance? sector money (European and national) being allocated and spent on economic development funds in the conurbation during this Whilst Liverpool’s international image has generally remained period. There were two key components of the European Objective positive over recent decades – primarily as a result of its 20th cen- One programme which was targeted at lagging regions that had tury sporting and cultural heritage – its economic and social de- less than 75% of the European average GDP per capita. The cline throughout the century led to many negative stereotypes European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) helped to rebuild nationally (Boland, 2008). The 2000s began to see the city make the physical infrastructure of the city, and the European Social headway in overturning these (frequently false) perceptions (Gar- Fund (ESF) was designed to improve ‘human capital’. These two cia, 2006). This effort was helped by the extensive physical change elements in combination were to make the city more attractive in the city centre and Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Cul- for private investment. The institutional structures formed to ture in 2008. administer these funds and deliver projects also became important Liverpool was the first UK city to announce that it intended to components of the emerging governance framework, which was bid for the title of European Capital of Culture (ECoC) for 2008. critical in helping to rebuild the fractured governance capacity of The bid was promoted around the theme of ‘The World in One City’ the city itself, but also trust with central government. The Mersey which was centred on celebrating and reconnecting Liverpool with Partnership (TMP) was established during the early 1990s to its historical global links based on trade and transport. The project promote Merseyside – and later, the ‘Liverpool City Region’ – to was intended to deliver three key dimensions: improving the cul- potential inward investors and later also took on the role of tural infrastructure of the city, promoting an inclusive approach to tourism management for the conurbation. culture, thereby facilitating community cohesion, and helping, Following the election of a ‘New’ Labour government in 1997, through renewal, to create a premier European city (Griffiths, the relationship between the city and national government became 2006). Internally this could be seen as a strong indication of the re- increasingly cooperative. In 1998 a Liberal Democrat administra- newed sense of purpose and strengthened capacity in the city’s tion was elected to lead Liverpool City Council, replacing the sitting governance structures. The announcement of the bid’s success in Labour group. The new leaders were proactive in promoting part- June 2003 was greeted with a mixture of excitement, enthusiasm nership working, civic boosterism and entrepreneurship, driving and surprise; Liverpool had not been the favourite but had beaten forward the city centre’s regeneration (Cocks, 2013). The establish- 11 other UK cities for the nomination. ment by central government of the regional level North West On 8th January 2008 Liverpool formally launched its ECoC cele- Development Agency (NWDA) increased the focus on urban devel- brations with 50,000 people gathering for a giant street party outside opment in the core cities of Liverpool and Manchester (Williams & St. Georges’ Hall, overseen by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. This Baker, 2007). A number of other area-based regeneration initia- marked the start of a year-long series of events taking place through- tives channelled further funding into the city, including New Deal out the city. It is reported that 830 events were listed on the ‘Liver- for Communities4 in the Kensington neighbourhood, and the contin- pool 08’ website and that in total over 7000 cultural activities7 uation of Single Regeneration Budget5 funds – initially established occurred (Garcia et al., 2010: 14). For many commentators the event under the Conservatives in the mid-1990s. Both of these pro- proved to be a huge success, increasing number of tourists and visitors, grammes included a strong partnership element. Liverpool Vision, and helping to re-image the city, locally, regionally, nationally and the UK’s first Urban Regeneration Company (URC), was founded in internationally (Garcia et al., 2010). Others have been more critical, 1999, as an independent company ‘‘responsible for the redevelop- questioning the level of local artistic engagement, and the ability of ment of Liverpool city centre’’ (Meegan, 2003; 65). This brought to- cultural events to fundamentally address longstanding problems of gether key public and private sector agencies. The introduction by social exclusion faced by some areas and groups in the city, which national government of Local Strategic Partnership’s (LSP)6 (Geddes, were hardly ameliorated and perhaps overshadowed by the ECoC year Davies, & Fuller, 2007) also resulted in the establishment of high le- (Boland, 2010; Jones & Wilks-Heeg, 2004). Others criticised the ability vel ‘stakeholder’ groups bringing together service providers to co- of the city to organise the celebrations (O’Brien, 2010, 2011). ordinate activity and public spending. The success of winning the UK’s nomination to become ECoC for 2008, and the City’s 800th birthday celebrations in 2007, provided a tight and focused time frame galvanising key actors into making important decisions to ensure major regeneration projects were under construction on time. Various policies and programmes be- 4 The New Deal for Communities (NDC) initiative was ‘‘Announced in 1998 as part came mutually reinforcing, with culture being seen as an impor- of the Government’s National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal1 (NSNR), its tant driver of change, engendering a renewed self-confidence in primary purpose was to reduce the gaps between the poorest neighbourhoods and the rest of the country. The ‘NDC model ‘is based on some key underlying principles: the city’s ability to adapt and change. For some observers Liverpool 10-year strategic transformation of neighbourhoods, dedicated neighbourhood emerged from being the ‘self-pity city’ to the ‘renaissance city’ agencies, community engagement, a partnership approach, and learning and inno- (Murden, 2006). vation. Thirty-nine partnerships were established, each receiving about £50m over Whilst there has undoubtedly been a substantial amount of 10 years’’ (2010, http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/ European and UK funding supporting regeneration, one of the 1487031.pdf). 5 ‘‘The Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) was introduced in April 1994. It combined notable features of the decade to 2010 was the private sector’s re- twenty previously separate programmes designed to bring about economic, physical newed confidence in the city, with a particular but not exclusive and social regeneration in local areas and its main purpose was to act as a catalyst for focus on the city centre. This return of private developer interest regeneration in the sense that it would work to attract other resources from the is best exemplified by a major city centre retail development that private, public and voluntary sectors in order to bring about improvements in local opened in 2008. The ‘Liverpool One’ scheme was constructed with- areas to the quality of life of local people. It was designed to do this by addressing local need, stimulating wealth creation and enhancing the local competitiveness of in the historic street pattern on a 17 ha site adjacent to the existing the area as a place in which business wished to invest and people wanted to live’’ retail core, around the resonant site of the city’s lost Customs (Cambridge Land Economy, http://www.landecon.cam.ac.uk/research/reuag/uars/ projects/urgsrb.htm – Accessed 04/04/12). 6 A Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) is a ‘‘non-statutory body that brings together 7 These include not only full events, but also ‘‘total performance days, exhibition the different parts of the public, private, voluntary and community sectors, working at days, training and educational workshops either delivered by the Liverpool Culture a local level. The lead player in the LSP is the local council’’ (Planning Advisory Service, Company or arising from direct grants or procurement’’ (Garcia, Meliville, & Cox, n.d.). 2010: 14).
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 14 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
House, itself built on the infilled 1715 ‘Old Dock’. The Duke of scheme further north along the docks in the centre of the UNESCO Westminster’s Grosvenor Group delivered a total investment value World Heritage Site is worth a further £112 million and sits adja- of £920 million, and the symbolic return of serious money. cent to the new Museum of Liverpool (Fig. 6). Many other individual Liverpool One has transformed the retail environment of the city investments also contributed to changing the city centre during the centre, and has generally been well-received and patronised (Little- 2000s, with a particular focus on the renovation and re-use of the field, 2009)(Fig. 5). Design commentators have hailed the project as city’s remaining historic warehouse and commercial buildings for a ‘benchmark’ for a city centre mixed use, largely retail led develop- new residential and leisure accommodation. ment, which although privately-managed space, is open and acces- Over the last 20 years Liverpool’s city centre population has sible throughout the day reconnects the waterfront with the rest of quadrupled, rising to 36,000 in 2012 (Bartlett, 2012) from a low the city (Biddulph, 2010). Nearby, the Kings Dock Development is a of 3 – 5000 in the early 1990s. The vitality and charisma of the cen- new conference centre and indoor arena valued at £400 million, and tral area has tended to distract academic and professional observ- was the single largest recipient of Objective One funds (£50 ers from the reality that some 95% of the city’s core area and million). The controversial Mann Island office and residential populace lie somewhat further away, in the thirty or so local and
Fig. 6. Museum of Liverpool (above) and Mann Island Scheme (below).
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 15
Fig. 7. Delay and decay in the inner suburbs. Photo Credit: Sykes (2009).
district centres that make up the core local authority area. At least urban scene in the city centre and key radial corridors with associ- twice as many again live in the adjacent metropolitan boroughs ated urban design improvements and the presence of a modern and towns – large towns such as Bootle, Birkenhead, Crosby, Kirby tram fleet; both epitomising sustainable urbanism and a commit- Southport, St. Helens and Huyton. Liverpool may be a true metrop- ment to the areas traversed. olis, but it does not always think like one. Proposals for a road-widening scheme on the eastern approach On a wider front, there have also been losses and controversies to the city encountered no such parsimony but proved even more in the city’s recent regeneration. Plans for a three line Light Rapid expensive and controversial than the failure of the tram scheme. Transit network called ‘Merseytram’, which was to have served the The Edge Lane project was seen as a throwback to the old urban north, east and south of the urban area were scuppered by a com- motorway clearances and delayed by opposition from local home bination of insufficiently cohesive local leadership and national owners and pressure groups objecting to unlawful use of land government parsimony (Smith, 2012; Wray, 2012)(Map 4). The assembly powers. The £70m scheme finally progressed after two abandonment of the scheme denied the city not only extended public inquiries and high court hearings, resulting in the demoli- fixed-rail transport coverage, but the opportunity to enhance the tion of over 500 homes including large Victorian villas along the
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 16 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Map 4. The proposed Merseytram network (2003). Source: Merseytravel (2003).
street frontage. Subsequent redevelopment has been slow and Looking ahead, proposals by the property-led regional developer dependent on further subsidy. Peel Holdings, for a project called Ocean Gateway, aspire to deliver The 2000s saw major intervention designed to address con- £50 billion of investment in the North West region over the next tested issues with allegedly low demand housing in parts of the few decades (http://www.peel.co.uk/projects/oceangateway). In city. As a result of studies in Liverpool and its surrounding areas 2004 Peel, owners of the Manchester Ship Canal estate, acquired (Nevin & Lee, 2003), in 2003 the national government established the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, which brought with it a generously funded ‘Housing Market Renewal’ (HMR) programme large areas of derelict and underused land on both sides of the river. particularly focused in the English North and Midlands. HMR was The company is proposing two major schemes to develop this designed to regenerate what were deemed to be ‘failing’ housing land. Across the Mersey from Liverpool a £4.5 billion programme markets, largely in inner urban areas, through a programme fo- of investment known as ‘Wirral Waters’, was granted planning per- cused on demolition and rebuilding at lower densities, combined mission in August 2010 (http://www.wirralwaters.co.uk). On the with renovation of existing properties. Liverpool side of the river, outline planning consent was given in In Merseyside, although the programme predominantly focused March 2012 to the £5.5 billion ‘Liverpool Waters’ dockland rede- on Liverpool, it also extended into the neighbouring local authority velopment scheme (www.liverpoolwaters.co.uk). In March 2013 areas of Wirral and Sefton. Between the start of the programme the UK government confirmed that it would not ‘call-in’ the appli- and 2011, £333 million of national government funds had been cation for this scheme but leave the decision on whether or not to spent across the conurbation through a programme of intervention grant planning permission to the local planning authority (Liver- in targeted local housing markets. The emptying and demolition of pool City Council) (Lewis, 2013). The developer Peel Holdings properties as part of this proved controversial and in some parts of envisages that the two schemes will be 30–40 year mixed use the city there was strong resistance to clearance proposals from developments providing some 25,000 new homes and over local residents and heritage groups (Allen, 2008; Brown, 2005). In 40,000 new jobs. Many of these aspirations will be dependent on 2011 the programme was terminated half way through by a new attracting inward investment, with global capital being key. It is national government. This left large areas of cleared land with no within this context that Liverpool as a city, is seeking to re-ignite immediate prospects for redevelopment; something which its links with the Far East, notably China. Liverpool has the oldest campaigners against demolition had feared. A ‘transition fund’ Shanghainese population in the UK and was the only UK city to was provided for the worst affected areas, but in Liverpool this be represented at the World EXPO in Shanghai in 2010 (Taylor & was earmarked to fund further demolition, a decision challenged Caswell, 2011). Whether such investment in place marketing in Court by SAVE Britain’s Heritage (Waddington, 2012). brings dividends only time will tell, not just for ‘Liverpool Waters’ In built environment terms, an irony of Liverpool’s recent but wider city regeneration. regeneration narrative is that, whilst official literature and place- The ‘Liverpool Waters’ scheme has proved contentious with marketing vaunt the distinctiveness of Liverpool’s built heritage, objections to the application from English Heritage, the national many of the city’s well designed inner suburbs continued to be government’s architectural conservation agency, and concerns subject to decay and removal in the name of regeneration (Brown, being expressed by UNESCO that, unless modified, the scheme will 2009)(Fig. 7). result in ‘‘a serious loss of historic authenticity’’ for the city’s WHS
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 17
Map 5. Index of multiple deprivation rankings of Liverpool Neighbourhoods. Source: Liverpool City Council (2010). http://liverpool.gov.uk/Images/ 1%20IMD%202010%20exec%20summary%20%282%29.pdf.
(Nugent, 2012). In June 2012 UNESCO added Liverpool’s ‘‘Maritime (Department for Communities and Local Government, 2010; Liver- Mercantile City’’ to the list of endangered World Heritage Sites pool City Council, 2010). The most deprived areas are to be found arguing that the Liverpool Waters development ‘‘will extend the in an inner ring around the city centre and large areas of 20th cen- city centre significantly and alter the skyline and profile of the site tury social housing to the north, east and extreme south of the city inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004’’ and ‘‘that the rede- (Map 5). Less-deprived and more affluent areas are to be found in velopment scheme will fragment and isolate the different dock the city centre, the north east, a large area in the south of the city, areas visually’’ (Johnson, 2012; UNESCO, 2012). and across the wider conurbation. Juxtaposed against the recent and future investment described above, concentrated in the core of the Merseyside conurbation, sig- nificant parts of Liverpool’s population continue to experience Some conclusions multiple deprivation and social exclusion. In terms of social disad- vantage, around 50% of Liverpool’s lower level super output areas8 The history of Liverpool makes for a distinctive and tumultu- are classified as being in the bottom 10% nationally for multiple ous urban story, and one which is far from over. Over three cen- deprivation, according to the 2010 English Indices of Deprivation turies the fortunes of the city can be seen to be emblematic of changing spatial patterns and flows of global capital, and latterly the oscillating priorities of national government and European 8 Super output areas are localised areas of around 1500 people and are the Union policy. statistical boundaries used in the development of multiple deprivation statistics in England. The 50% figure is based upon the authors’ calculations from IMD 2010 data It was the city’s proximity to the revolutionary industrial (Communities and Local Government, 2010). growth in the north of England during the 18th and 19th century,
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 18 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx and the River Mersey’s ability to act as a portal to Atlantic trade In light of this, it is worth noting the vote by Liverpool City routes, fuelled by extraordinary technological innovation in trans- Council in 2012 to establish the office of elected mayor for Liver- port and architectural infrastructure, which saw its rise to eco- pool. Some local commentators and groups feel that an elected nomic and strategic pre-eminence. In the 20th century, changing mayor for the whole Liverpool City Region should be the ultimate modes and sites of global capitalism, in parallel with a catastrophic goal, allowing administrative fragmentation between the conurba- over-reach of comprehensive planning policies, led to a seemingly tion’s local governments to be overcome, and a scale of metropol- irrevocable change in fortunes. Public works and redistribution of itan representation that more closely resembles that enjoyed by industry played a part in stemming tides of decline, but also London (Opinion, 2012: 52). Meanwhile there are some hopes, de- encouraged the overspill and high rise housing experiments that spite a very low turnout of 31.7% in the first mayoral elections in hollowed out the urban core. The collapse of Britain’s manufactur- 2012 (Topping, 2012), that the new office may herald a different ing base during the 1970s and 1980s and a changed focus of na- era of governance for the city, with the potential to provide more tional economic management towards financial services and the visible and accountable leadership, both within and outside the state’s strategic privileging of south east England removed the area, including internationally. The appropriate incumbent might safety net. Liverpool was left without sufficient wealth creating also be able to use the office to unify the city’s development policy residents and enterprises within its territory to repair the damage (a new Mayoral Development Corporation [MDC] was established wrought by external circumstance and self-inflicted wounds. The in 2012 – Liverpool City Council, 2012). This may help overcome difficult conditions and political turbulence experienced by what some have seen as a lack of a unified approach in the past Liverpool and Merseyside were extensively reported, often unsym- when development sometimes disintegrated ‘‘into a series of local- pathetically and the area’s image and reputation were detrimen- ised projects that were lacking in strategic context and focused tally affected as a result. By the 1980s, Liverpudlians were only on short-term goals’’ (Couch, 2003, p. 9). Overall, it is undeni- sometimes viewed with contempt and ‘‘their once grand, increas- able that a period of sustained decline is now being replaced with ingly gaunt city was associated with riots, insubordinate leftwing one of modest, but significant growth. Important work remains to councillors and unstoppable economic decline’’ (Beckett, 2012). be done to address underlying physical and social issues and to Yet since the city’s nadir during the Thatcher era, a substantial manage the impacts of current budgetary ‘austerity’ on areas, city supply-side endeavour to reverse its fortunes has taken place, cer- services and people. However, the city is beginning to emerge from tainly driven by local energy, if facilitated for much of the period al- its experience as a ‘shrinking city’ of the post industrial era (Couch most entirely by externally sourced public money. There has also & Cocks, 2012). As such its story is one which may bring hope and been a gradual realisation that Liverpool’s multiple identities are offer lessons to others. Whichever forms future governance takes, perhaps its greatest asset. Its economic and cultural histories, its and whatever challenges and prospects providence sends her architectural splendour, its sporting prominence and its people still way, Liverpool seems set to remain a city of ‘change and challenge’ make this a great city. The renovation of the city centre during re- whose story goes on – something which only a few decades ago cent decades and buoyant higher education and cultural sectors seemed far from assured. have undoubtedly served to strengthen its offer as a location to live, visit and invest in. The European Capital of Culture year in 2008 played an important role in focusing the minds of those outside References and, perhaps more significantly, inside the city on these assets, reconnecting public consciousness with the intrinsic value of the Allen, C. (2008). Housing market renewal and social class. Abingdon: Routledge. city and its region. However, as indicated above, significant chal- Andrews, V. (2012). The way we lived – The story of our Liverpool homes. Liverpool: Trinity Mirror/Liverpool Post & Echo. lenges remain, and are now primarily twofold: firstly, to maintain Aughton, P. (2012). Liverpool – A people’s history. Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing. the momentum of the past decade; secondly, and crucially, to en- Bartlett, D. (2012). Liverpool city centre flats supply in spotlight as population sure that future prosperity is accessible to the whole population. reaches 36,000. Liverpool Post, 25 October 2012.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx 19
Brookfield, J. (2002). The confusion of ideology: Understanding labour party politics in Lees, A. (2011). The hurricane port – A social history of Liverpool. London and Liverpool, 1963–83. Unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Oxford. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing. Brown, P. (2005). Road to nowhere. Civic Focus (The Civic Trust), 50, 4–5. Lewis, S. (2013). Town and country planning (consultation) (England) direction 2009, Brown, J. (2009). Liverpool betrayed: From post-war to Pathfinder. In Triumph, Application for outline planning permission for redevelopment of Liverpool central disaster and decay – The SAVE survey of Liverpool’s heritage (pp. 23–27). London: and Northern Docks (known as Liverpool Waters), Application number 1oO/2424. SAVE Britain’s Heritage. Birmingham: Department for Communities and Local Government, National Census (1981). 1981 English census data.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013 20 O. Sykes et al. / Cities xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Powell, K. (1984). The agony of Georgian Liverpool. London: SAVE Britain’s Heritage. Throgmorton, J., & Eckstein, B. (Eds.). (2003). Story and sustainability: Planning, Rogers, K. (2010). The lost tribe of Everton and Scottie Road. Liverpool: Trinity Mirror practice, and possibility for American cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Media. Topping, A. (2012). Labour’s Joe Anderson elected Liverpool mayor. The Guardian,04 Sandercock, L. (2003a). Cosmopolis II – Mongrel cities in the 21st century. London and May 2012.
Please cite this article in press as: Sykes, O., et al. A City Profile of Liverpool. J. Cities (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.03.013